


the part of you that’s her and the part of you that’s you

by seh28



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23738599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seh28/pseuds/seh28
Summary: post 2x05. maria ponders the expansive, unfamiliar space of attempting to trust michael guerin again.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca & Michael Guerin, Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	the part of you that’s her and the part of you that’s you

She wasn’t really sure how they had ended up back here. 

In a tangled mess of limbs and sheets and cyclical need.

She had been the kind of furious and wounded that rivaled the sheer power of an avalanche or a swarm of agitated insects.

The kind of hurt that lingers and can’t necessarily be undone or explained away. 

The kind of confusion that hits you like a ton of bricks even when you’ve been living long enough to know that life is full of surprises. 

And yet you’re still completely blindsided by a truth that’s knocked the wind right out of your chest.

But what was she supposed to do, really?

Where was she supposed to put all of that emotion?

Because that pain and anger and overwhelmingly loud current you feel when a steadily building trust seeps out of your pores, doesn’t actually last forever. 

Even if she wanted it to, even if she could keep it close and use it as some type of sacred armor. Even if that would help keep him at an arm’s length indefinitely. 

Would she even want that? Like actually want him out of her life?

The thing about all those initial feelings of betrayal and confusion and bewilderment is that once they subside, everything else is still there… simmering languidly against the impetus of it all.

The comfort, the familiarity, the sweetness, the genuine boundless care.

The ease.

It was so easy for them to navigate the spaces around one another and with one another.

None of it ever felt like work.

Even in the bickering or the bantering. It fit all the sorted groves and divets; filled up each other’s lack.

That doesn’t just disappear. 

So she’s not surprised that they’ve ended up like this, once again. Both barely clothed, sharing a too-small bed, beneath too thin sheets in his airstream. 

Him reading from some file with her bare feet against his bare stomach, his legs sprawled out in the opposite direction. Her across from him quietly observing his stillness and concentration in the first bits of consciousness after having just awoken. 

Her foot just barely twitches as her muscles further wake; he mindlessly grasps it with his free hand but doesn’t look up from whatever he’s reading.

So she keeps silently pondering the depth of whatever this is and how after weeks of successfully not talking to him, they’d ended up right back where they’d been prior- months ago when they were fully playing house but saying they weren’t.

Back then when she was in an elevated, near constant state of fear and worry over her mother.

When she was imperceptibly terrified and uneasy for herself.

That protruding memory causes her to realize that she’d been less and less worried or fearful for herself when he was around. 

She wondered when exactly that had started?

And why it felt like such an anchored feeling; even in the midst of shattered trust.

Had she missed it against the onslaught of everything else she was dealing with on a daily basis?

How had this crept up on her so severely?

How had he?

And why, despite all crises and disasters and reveals, had she somehow allowed him to stay?

Or at the very least return.

Sometimes attempting to bargain with your heart is a wildly futile task.

As is trying to pinpoint when he had turned into this sublime retreat, even given all these other extenuating circumstances.

The first time she had seen him again after successfully shutting him out was the day she went to Max’s to see Liz and Rosa. 

After sitting outside with them, Michael had emerged from inside the house and stopped immediately in his tracks when he saw her. 

They locked eyes for a bit longer than a moment before she looked back at Liz, who gave her a knowing look that only someone who has been exceedingly close to you in your formative years could effectively give. 

But they hadn’t spoken. 

It wasn’t the time or the place and for some reason, just them being in the same general space served a very clarifying and real purpose.

She had gone in to sit with Max for a while and say a brief prayer at his bedside. 

She whispered a few heartfelt, encouraging words to Liz and after hugging her and Rosa goodbye she thought maybe she’d have to say something to Michael. 

But she didn’t know what. She hadn’t properly located the words for it just yet.

Still so gutted by the thought of it all.

And she could see how much he was hurting.

Her hurt, his hurt. Such tumult to contend with. 

So all she could muster was a reassuring gaze and a gentle squeeze of his arm as she walked past him.

She felt him lightly sway into her fleeting frame.

She saw him in her rearview mirror on the porch watching her drive away.

He had shown up at the Pony a few days later. He hadn’t approached her or attempted to talk. 

Just drank and watched her work, he tried to be less than obvious about it yet she felt his eyes on her.

He half thought she’d throw him out. She didn’t.

He carried some things to her truck for her a few nights later without her even having to ask. 

She thanked him and didn’t realize those were the first words she’d uttered to him in quite some time.

And still, there wasn’t that necessary addressing of what had taken place between them.

The enormous breach of trust that she was still trying to wrap her mind around.

It was one thing to know that people are entitled to their secrets, it’s another to feel like a secret directly impacted you and even potentially put you or your mother in danger and those who cared about you still kept it.

The bigger thing she was trying to contend with was that, while so many people were in the know about this big secret, at least Liz and Alex were still who they’d always been.

And ultimately maybe it really wasn’t their secret to tell: not about Michael and Isobel and Max anyway.

Liz and Alex hadn’t actually changed after all.

She still knew them. They were still quite literally... people.

Michael being an alien felt so inconceivable that she wondered if she had dreamt up how he felt and tasted and smelled.

All very human.

And yet, this information of him being the furthest thing from that seemed quite plausible.

Him being from another dimension and planet made complete sense because there was this otherworldly quality. Something she had been unconsciously trying to internally reconcile.

Something about him.

And no, it wasn’t immediately obvious because she’d known him for a long time. It was slight and meager and then it grew quietly until she had suddenly realized how responsive she was to every part of him.

And it had shocked her.

And while she kept trying to convince herself of its lack of meaning, maybe she always saw this thing about him she just couldn’t properly put her finger on.

Underneath all the brooding and anger and veneer. 

Something so malleable and ethereal and constant.

She notices his expression changes as he continues to read.

“You okay?”

That expression instantly evaporates and turns relaxed as soon as he sees her lying there looking at him. 

“I am.”

She wanted to both press him and leave it alone in equal measure.

She wanted to give him the space to tell her things of his own volition but also wrestled with potentially not knowing how to convey support.

How different were all the facets of the internal inner workings of the emotional and mental alien world? And could they really be that different if he’d successfully been an alien living on this human planet all this time?

Largely undetected or found out.

He sees her looking discreetly at the file.

“It’s information about my mother,” he says softly.

“You mentioned her very briefly before when mine was missing. Was she...”

“An alien?”

Maria nods.

“Yeah, it’s a fucked up sorted story. And yet here I am, trying to figure out more of it.” 

He closes and drops the file. 

“Of course you are, how could you not? She’s part of you.”

Maria leans up and reaches her hand out to grasp his arm.

“Both the part of you that’s her and the part of you that’s you would want to know, I feel the same way,” she reassures.

His eyes get momentarily sad before he picks up her hand and brushes his lips against it. He then smooths both of his hands over her feet still in his lap.

“What happened here?” Michael gently inquires.

He points to her little pinkie toe, only half-covered with white nail polish, looking like the odd man out amongst her otherwise perfect pedicure. 

“I wasn’t paying attention and stubbed it so hard, it took most of the polish off.”

“Ow.”

“I’ve been meaning to fix it, there’s even polish in my purse, just haven’t gotten around to it.”

“You want me to do it?”

Maria smiles.

“You’re gonna paint my pinkie toe for me, Guerin?”

“I’ll paint them all for you if you want, Deluca.”

“I don’t have any remover,” she responds after contemplating his offer.

“I do.” 

Maria pauses for a moment before replying.

“Right. You had a few empty bottles in your truck that I noticed on our way back to Texas, I figured it was a car thing.”

“It does also work on scuffs on cars so you aren’t wrong,” Michael chuckles. 

“So that’s another alien thing, huh?”

“Mhm, it’s like what you’d equate 10 hours of sleep and a green juice to. Replenishes our output, sometimes our powers weaken or really tire us.”

Maria nods.

Moments later, she’s watching him enact the same level of meticulous, unrivaled concentration as he gently paints each one of her toes.  
She’s taken by how small yet mighty not only the gesture is, but the care he takes in performing it.

There’s a level of unbridled softness that exists within Michael Guerin that so many just didn’t have access to. 

At that moment she felt a distinct honor to witness it and to be on the receiving end of it. 

So much so that she felt emotion crowd her throat.

“Did your necklace break again?” Michael asked, pulling her out of her internal rollercoaster.

“What?”

“Yeah, the one I fixed.”

“Oh no, I actually gave it to my mom.”

“Ah,” Michael responded, leaning further over her newly painted toes and gently blowing.

Maria’s lips inadvertently parted at this move.

“I had just noticed you weren’t wearing it recently,” he admitted, still concentrating on drying her toes with the air from his mouth.

“You’re quite observant.”

“You’re the easiest thing in the world to observe.”

She smiles.

“All done,” he remarks proudly as he inspects his work.

“Hey,” Maria says gently. He looks up at her for the first time in several moments.

She leans forward over both of their laps and kisses him.

“Thanks for the pretty toes,” she says.

“Thank your mom for the pretty toes but you’re welcome for the polish,” Michael replied, kissing her.


End file.
